The Shielded Vision of Disaster

The democratic congress passed a spending bill today; the New York Times says this:



"The legislation aimed at accelerating an end to the war passed on a vote of 218 to 212, with all but two Republicans
opposing. Even as the debate moves to the Senate, where a less
restrictive plan is to be considered next week, Mr. Bush dismissed the
action as “political theater” and promised to veto attempts
to manage the war from Capitol Hill."



And then look at this story, in The Street (thestreet.com):



"Crude prices climbed for the third consecutive
session in New York Friday on news of increased instability in the
Middle East and higher gasoline prices in domestic markets . . . "



And, later in the article:



"Energy futures were rattled in early trading on
news that 15 British Navy sailors were detained at gunpoint by Iranian
soldiers while they were boarding an Iranian cargo ship. The British
Foreign Ministry says that its sailors were operating in Iraqi
territorial waters, but Iran insisted they were in Iranian waters."



And yet, as our politicians debate the war they continue to say nothing about oil or our dependency on it. Any modern society depends upon energy for its very survival; the fact that we are further away from energy independence every day should give everyone pause. We will not run out of oil, but the world situation will make our current lifestyle impossible to maintain.



The only way to truly solve the Mideast's problems, and it will take a long time, is to eliminate the need to buy oil from them.



That addiction to oil is obvious to anyone who even does even a bit of study into this situation, and other western countries are to blame as well; we are all at least in part responsible for the situation in the middle east, and it is a situation that has grown to its current dimensions through decades of bad policy, through decades of supporting and enriching regimes that are and were repressive and totalitarian at the best and brutal at the worst. Do not forget, we supported Saddam Hussein at his outset, and armed him against Iran when that country broke away from the ruler we had put in place.



I understand not wanting to talk about these things, but they are the situation we are dealing with. We need to figure out a way to produce our own liquid fuel, someway, somehow, and combine that with more electric cars and drastically increased mileage requirements for cars.



It is often commented how only a tiny portion of America is paying a price for the war, but that must end. We are in an epic struggle - everyone agrees on that. But then they go blithely on to ignore the cause of that trouble.



It is possible to do get off of gasoline, but it will take great sacrifice - and in the end, it will be worth it. We need to act in the immediate future, though - the quality of life for all that come after us will depend upon our decisions in the very near future now, and the window of that decision making is at a point where the ability to enact a successful plan will be diminished - at that point, disaster will have struck while we are completely unprepared - what that means is six to eight dollar a gallon gas, heavily rationed, and a general collapse of the dollar and the economy. At that point, things will get dicey for a lot of people.



So the next time you can ask a question, ask this one - why do we fund the terrorists through the purchase of their allies' gasoline, when we can get off of it?



We can do this - so if we are funding our enemy through the purchase of oil, and if it is the epic struggle of our generation, then why don't we get off of gasoline?

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The plight of the Bees

A Cornell University
study has estimated that honeybees annually pollinate more than $14
billion worth of seeds and crops in the United States, mostly fruits,
vegetables and nuts. “Every third bite we consume in our diet is
dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food,” said Zac Browning,
vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation.











The above statement, and the graph supporting it, are the type of story that should trouble us greatly. Instead of talking about oil for a moment, lets look at some other aspects of a changing climate - and that is the shifting of viable large scale food production.



The bees, as seen from the above chart, are responsible for pollinating a large amount of the foodstuffs that we consume; more than that, they are indicators of the general health of our environment.



Now, don't get me wrong - in the long run, we can't do much to hurt the planet. What we can do is make things bad for us and other species which share this planet in the short run.



Society has come a long way, but in any society as large as ours, and so dependent on technology and energy to transport food, it has weaknesses. Famine is an age old problem for humanity, and our modern society will not necessarily protect us from it.



The bees, like many small things, are an indicator that we need to take seriously - one small thing or another may not make much difference, but we are seeing to many small things, and they are all pointing in the same direction.



Like to many things, we need to start treating these matters with the seriousness that they deserve; Catrina and the gulf coast destruction is a timely reminder, but one which we seem to be ignoring.

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Immigration Reform

Here is an idea on immigration that I got from a person which I admire quite a lot; some of the embellishments are mine, but the main thrust of the idea is this;



Let them in; legally, and with hardly any interference at border crossings. As they come in, they will be assigned a social security card and a laminated, federal ID - they would also be fingerprinted and photographed, and records could be run on those items and against their names for criminal background.



If such were found, they would be turned away.



With so many people no longer pouring over the border, our border assets, which are not equal to the job of keeping out the vast number of well intentioned illegal immigrants, could instead concentrate on the much smaller number of ill intentioned people trying to move across our border.



At the same time, a national system of checking social security numbers before job hiring would be put into place; the vast majority of illegal aliens work with legitimate companies, and fake social security numbers now are extremely easy to find.



A system could be set up within months to do this; in fact, the basic system is already in place vis a vis the NICS check system for firearms transactions approval. There could easily be a departmental shift, and extra resources added to the existing infrastructure of NICS to check Social Security numbers. f the Social Security number comes back bad, there can be no hire. If a company is caught with new, bad social security numbers the penalties would have to be stiff.



The above solution solves several problems at one time; the social security number issued would not be citizenship, and if laws were broken the person could be sent away, with their photo and fingerprints on file.



With hi-tech surveillance and quick response teams our border agents could then concentrate on the only people that would be left crossing the border in desolate stretches at the dead of night; those people would be criminals, and could be dealt with accordingly.

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